Nouns

It's not easy to describe a noun. In simple terms, nouns are "things" (and verbs are "actions"). Like food. Food (noun) is something you eat (verb). Or happiness. Happiness (noun) is something you want (verb). Or human being. A human being (noun) is something you are (verb).

What are Nouns?

The simple definition is: a person, place or thing. Here are some examples:

• person: man, woman, teacher, John, Mary

• place: home, office, town, countryside, America

• thing: table, car, banana, money, music, love, dog, monkey

The problem with this definition is that it does not explain why "love" is a noun but can also be a verb.

Another (more complicated) way of recognizing a noun is by its:

1. Ending

2. Position

3. Function

1. Noun Ending

There are certain word endings that show that a word is a noun, for example:

• -ity > nationality

• -ment > appointment

• -ness > happiness

• -ation > relation

• -hood > childhood

But this is not is not true for the word endings of all nouns. For example, the noun "spoonful" ends in -ful, but the adjective "careful" also ends in -ful.

2. Position in Sentence

We can often recognise a noun by its position in the sentence.

Nouns often come after a determiner (a determiner is a word like a, an, the, this, my, such):

• a relief

• an afternoon

• the doctor

• this word

• my house

• such stupidity

Nouns often come after one or more adjectives:

• a great relief

• a peaceful afternoon

• the tall, Indian doctor

• this difficult word

• my brown and white house

• such crass stupidity

3. Function in a Sentence

Nouns have certain functions (jobs) in a sentence, for example:

• subject of verb: Doctors work hard.

• object of verb: He likes coffee.

• subject and object of verb: Teachers teach students.

But the subject or object of a sentence is not always a noun. It could be a pronoun or a phrase. In the sentence "My doctor works hard", the noun is "doctor" but the subject is "My doctor".